


The Queendom

by ThatStupidDeer



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Mother/Daughter Bonding, it doesnt really feel done but i want it out of my wip folder, this is a blatant rip of a scene from the lion king do not judge me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22370776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatStupidDeer/pseuds/ThatStupidDeer
Summary: Mara takes her daughter to the Oracle Engine to see the entire Queendom of the Awoken.
Kudos: 1





	The Queendom

Ronja snoozes in the Dreaming City sun, her head tilted forward so that her chin rests on her chest. She has her hood up to block out the light enough to let her sleep peacefully, and her hands are tucked in her front pockets, keeping them off of the ground. She is blissfully unaware of the world around her, the hood of her sweater blocking out most of the noise floating in from the Palace up the hillside. Out here, there is little more than pasture and fencing, and it is a perfect place to take a catnap.

Something hard clips the side of her head, startling her from her nap. She snorts in a breath, and blinks up at the sky, thinking something must have fallen on her. The scent of leather reaches her nose, and she looks down to her lap where the offending object lays; a loop of rein. Her eyes follow the leather reins, and soon her eyes lock with her mother’s, causing her to startle.

“Good. You’re awake,” the Queen says, a faint quirk of her lips betraying an amused smile. Ronja rubs the spot where the leather reins had struck her head, and she pulls her hood down.

“You could have just called my name, Mom. I woulda heard you,” she says. She hauls herself onto her feet by the rung of the fence just within arms reach.

“No, you would not have heard me,” Mara says, but she doesn’t continue with the line of thought. “Come along. I have something to show you. We will get there faster mounted than we will on foot."

Ronja blows out through her lips, and gives the reins a gentle tug. Her mare steps up towards her, and much to Ronja’s annoyance, she sees a saddle already tied snugly to Lady’s back. She hoped her mother would at least humour her, but it seems as though that will not be the case. Without a saddle, Ronja can climb on Lady’s back without much help, but with the tack so very much in the way, she has to use the fence to mount up, climbing a bit awkwardly on. 

“Where are we going, Mom? Am I in trouble or something?” Ronja asks as she gathers her reins, and urges Lady into an easy walk. Mara is already mounted and nudging her own mare forward.

“No, far from it. It is time I showed you a few things,” Mara says. She clicks her tongue, squeezes her legs together, and her mount shifts into an easy lope. Ronja’s mare follows swiftly, eager to keep up.

Ronja badgers her mother with questions as they ride, but the Queen simply shrugs them off, repeating that she will see when they get to where they’re going. Ten minutes into the ride, Ronja sighs and gives up questioning her mother. She is firm in not telling her anything on the way there, and Ronja knows she won’t be able to bother it out of her. Not this time, anyway.

-==-

The spire juts out of the cliffs like a hunk of crystal, glittering and sparkling in the artificial sun. The ground beneath their horses’ hooves shifts from packed earth to stone, and their clattering footfalls echo against the geodes and cliffaces. They slow down and stop before the bridge that leads into the spire, and Mara swings down in one smooth motion.

Ronja remains where she is, staring up at the spire with wide eyes.

“You know where we are?” Mara asks, though it is not truly a question. Ronja swallows and licks her lips.

“Yeah. Spine of Keres. But I thought I wasn’t allowed to come here?” she says. She pulls her feet from the stirrups and slides down from her mount’s back, a much less graceful dismount compared to her mother’s.

“Normally, no, but I am making an exception for today. It’s about time I showed you this place, and a few other things,” Mara says, removing the bridle from her mare’s head and hooking it over the horn of the saddle. Ronja does the same, and both horses move off of the stone to nearby grass to graze and wait for their riders to return.

Ronja’s eyes stay fixed on the spire as they walk along the bridge to the entrance. The air around them is silent, not even the usual bird calls fill the air. As they draw closer to the spire, however, she can hear the faint hum of what lies inside.

They pass through the yawning door of the spire and into the room that holds the near-mythical Oracle Engine.

The room is filled with an ethereal mist that envelopes the Oracle Engine. The Engine itself rotates in near silence, the only noise it emits is a faint, rumbling hum as it spins around and around, a small solar system at the heart of the Dreaming City.

“Whoa…” Ronja breathes as she looks up at the Oracle Engine. It doesn’t even look truly physical, like her hands might go right through it if she were to try and touch it. She doesn’t dare to try and lay a hand on it, however. She’s not sure it would be such a good thing to try, nor does she think her mother would approve of it.

“Come. This way, Ronja.” Her head snaps towards her mother’s voice, and she realizes she’s being left behind. Mara is making her way up towards the next level of the spire, and she is quick to follow after her.

“This is… so cool,” Ronja says, struggling to come up with the words to describe this place. She has only ever heard about it from her mother, and vaguely at that. No one but the Queen and her Techeuns have access to this place, and Ronja was almost certain she would never see this place. Maybe she would see it when she became Queen, but even that felt like a stretch to her.

“Mm. Wait until you see just why I brought you here then, my star,” Mara says, giving her daughter a faint grin. She reaches out to the console on the balcony they now stand on, and the rings projected over it contract towards her palm. The Oracle Engine’s spinning slows to a halt for just a second, and then it begins to spin rapidly in the opposite direction. Mist emanating from around the base of the Engine hovers over rises up and out, gathering around the outer ring of the Engine.

Parts of the mist seem to condense until they look rock and metal, and soon a shimmering map of the entire Reef and asteroid belt begins to take shape around the outer ring. Ronja’s mouth drops open as she realizes just what she’s seeing.

The entire Reef is laid out before her in miniature, a three-dimensional map of the Queendom of the Awoken.

“Whooaa!” she gasps. “This is incredible! Can I go down and get a closer look?”

“Of course,” Mara says with a soft chuckle. Ronja barely waits for the full two words to leave her mother’s mouth; she’s already bolting down the stairs to put herself almost under the Oracle Engine. For now, it has stopped spinning now that the map has fully formed, and there is no risk of being struck by it.

Ronja reaches up to paw at a couple of the larger asteroids, and she can see that, even in this, the details are incredible. She can see cities and habitats, she can see the small planetary bodies within the Reef, the wrecks of ancient ships, and the terraformed asteroids full of animal life. 

One of the planetary bodies glows like a small star in the belt, and Ronja reaches up to close her hands around it with a grin. The glow vanishes between her palms, and reappears when she opens them. She wonders if this is how gods and Ancients feel when they toy with the universe; maybe why that’s why they only do such grand things.

“This is our Queendom, Ronja,” Mara says as she descends the stairs so that she can be on her daughter’s level again. “All of this…” She sweeps her hand along a long curve of the asteroid belt. “Is ours.”

“Wow… I didn’t realize the Reef was so big. And all of this belongs to the Awoken?” Ronja asks, reaching up to try and touch the furthest reach on one end of the map. It’s far too wide to try and reach for the other side as well, but she still stretches out her other arm towards it. She thinks she would need three or four more arm spans to reach the other side of the map.

“Yes… And there is room for expansion, should the need ever arise. All this space here.” Mara reaches up, but the map is far too tall for her to touch the top of it, but Ronja gets the idea. “Is largely empty. A few raider and pirate settlements perhaps, but nothing that can’t be cleared away should it ever come to it.”

“Do you think we would ever need to expand that far?” Ronja asks, her eyes scanning the empty parts of the map. It is full of asteroids and ships, but they are all dark; there is no sign of life like the central Reef.

“Perhaps, far in the future. In time, maybe when you are Queen,” Mara says. She gestures with both arms, indicating the settled parts of the Reef and beyond. “And one day, you will rule all of this.”

Ronja’s eyes widen just a little. She has always known that becoming Queen is something in her future, and that she will one day rule the Reef, but it’s one thing to hear it, and another thing to see just how much will be under her rule someday. “All of this will be mine?”

Mara laughs softly. “Everything you see, you will rule,” she says.

Ronja’s eyes scan over the map again, before they land on a part she hadn’t noticed before. She recognizes the Watchtower, but beyond it, she doesn’t quite recognize. It almost looks barren, like a desert on Earth, but there are lights there too, a sign of life.

“What’s that place?” she asks, pointing to it. Mara’s eyes follow her daughter’s gesture, and they land on the barren stretch of rocks.

“That is the Tangled Shore… it was once under our rule, but it has long since been ceded to the Spider,” she says. “Don’t concern yourself with it. It is not a place you will need to go.”

“Why did we give it up?” she asks.

“There was little use for it. There was some terraforming, but plant life never took hold at large there… they withered and died in all but a small handful of places, and none of them are good for crops or grazing,” Mara explains. “The Spider has… made use of the Shore where we could not.”

“I think I’ve heard some of the Corsairs talk about that place,” Ronja says, reaching out to poke at the Shore. “Why can’t I go there if they can?”

“Because it is not safe for someone like you,” Mara says, her voice stern, almost a snap. Ronja bites her lip, and draws her hand back from the map of the Shore. Her mother’s insistence to not go there has only made her curious, but she knows better than to question her mother more. The tone had a certain finality to it that she didn’t want to push on.

Her gaze turns upwards again, scanning the arching map that stretches out above her head. She hears her mother’s footsteps behind her, and then the warm presence of her standing only inches behind her. Mara’s hands settle on her shoulders, a pleasant, soothing weight.

“A beautiful creation,” Mara says, her voice soft and low. She looks up too, following Ronja’s gaze. “One that will be yours someday. All that you can see, all that you can reach… it will be yours one day, when you take my place as Queen.”

“I don’t think I can wrap my head around it… it looks so big here, but I know it’s huge… I don’t even know if there’s enough time in my life to explore it all,” Ronja says, bringing her hands up to grip her mother’s as they rest on her shoulders. “I want to, though. I want to see all of it someday.”

“You have a long life ahead of you, Ronja,” Mara says softly. “You will have more than enough time to see it all.”

“Only if you’re with me,” Ronja says, tilting her head to look up at her mother. “I don’t think I could do it alone.”

There is a long silence as Mara looks down at her daughter. Ronja searches her eyes for an answer, but they are neutral, almost flat. Something is going on behind those eyes, though, and Ronja knows it. But before she can ask if something is wrong, Mara smiles, and squeezes her shoulders affectionately.

“I will always be with you, Ronja,” she says. 


End file.
